The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The 1909 Huber Building -- No. 13 East 40th Street

Staid brownstone residences flank the white marble Huber Building upon its completion. In the second story show window is a suite of French budoir furniture, including a fringed floor lamp -- photo Museum of the City of New York

By 1879 John F. Adams had done well for himself.He lived in a 25-foot wide home at No. 13
East 40th Street in what was rapidly becoming the most fashionable
residential neighborhood in Manhattan and he was a member of the exclusive Union
Club.The last thing his respectable
neighbors would expect to read in the newspapers was that he had been involved
in a public display of common fisticuffs.

Yet on October 6 a casual game of billiards in the Union
Club would result in just that.Adams’s
opponent, stock broker Henry Y. Leavitt, accused him of “taking unfair advantage
of his play” and, according to The Sun, “Adams retorted by intimating that
Leavitt was a falsifier.”

In Victorian New York calling a gentleman—or anyone for that
matter—a liar was an insult that could not be ignored.

Leavitt put his billiard cue down and asked Adams “Will you
come outside?”

“Adams had hardly put his foot on the sidewalk when Leavitt,
who had reached it before him, turned and struck him a stunning blow under the
ear,” reported the newspaper.Although
Adams fought valiantly, “his antagonist had too much muscle and science for
him.”Adams pleaded for Leavitt to
desist, but the pummeling continued.

Finally waiters from the Union Club rushed out and broke up
the fight, sending Adams home in a cab.The humiliation was intensified—both for Adams and his wife Emily—when the
account was published in the newspapers the following morning.

As the neighborhood around No. 13 East 40th
Street changed, the Adams family moved on.In
March 1909 Emily Adams leased the house to H. F. Huber & Co., a high-end
interior decorator firm.Huber
immediately announced plans to renovate.Plans were filed with the Department of Buildings for “making over the
four story and basement residence…into a studio building, enlarging the
building by a six story extension in the rear and installing elevator
service.The $20,000 make-over would be
designed by architect J. H. Freedlander.

Freedlander apparently made a conscious attempt to slip the Huber Building discreetly among its high-toned brownstone neighbors. What resulted was a curious melding of Beaux Arts
residential architecture, including a delightful Juliette balcony, above
two unabashedly commercial floors.Here
large show windows—especially the aquarium-like expanse of glass at the
second story—gave Huber & Co. exceptional sunlight and exposure.Above it all was a picturesque if unexpected Mediterranean
overhanging roof of green tile supported by copper brackets.

The white South Dover marble façade created a start contrast
to the brownstone residences along East 40th Street.The New York Times called it “of unique
design” and pointed out the “fleur de peche panels between the third and fourth
story windows.”

The New York Times was taken with the carved "fleur de peche" panels between the third and fourth stories -- photo cyprusun.org

The Sun would later comment on the design firm’s “pioneering”
move.“They were among the first to see
the advantage of this new business location,” it said almost a decade later, “and
were followed by other large business firms.”

By May 1918 the successful business of H. F. Huber & Co.
made the former house inadequate.The houses next door, at Nos. 9 and 11, had been replaced by the Yale
& Towne Building in 1913.Huber had
already taken two floors of that building and now expanded into another full
floor.

Eleven years later the commercial invasion begun by H. F.
Huber & Co. was in full swing.As
the decorators moved their factory to the Decorative Trades building on East 47th
Street in 1929, retaining their showrooms on East 40th, The New York
Times reminisced about the changes in the area.“They were the first to encroach upon the residential district of
Fortieth Street east of Fifth Avenue,” said the newspaper.“At that time it was the only building not
occupied as a private residence, with the exception of the famous Brook
Club.The Huber Building on Fortieth
Street has since been surrounded by skyscrapers.”

By mid-century the showrooms of H. F. Huber & Co. had
been replaced with the offices of manufacturers of less elegant goods.In 1952 the Dunmore Company, makers of
Dunmore power tools, was here.The firm
sold grinders, routers and other electric tools; advertising in hobbyist
magazines like Popular Mechanics.Also
in the building was Electro-Voice, Inc.The company sold “assemble your own” hi-fi speaker cabinets.Its advertisements promised that “you save as
much as 50% when you do it yourself” and hi-fi hobbyists could choose among
period styles like Regency, Empire, Baronet and Georgian.

Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, at
a time when modernization was brutalizing the delicate facades of
turn-of-the-century buildings, the Huber Building remained unscathed.In the 1970s Fann-Temp employment agency did
business here, offering students looking for summer jobs a “Fann-Tastic summer.”

Little has changed at No. 13 East 40th Street since H. F. Huber & Co. moved in -- photo by Alice Lum

In the 1990s the building was purchased by the Government of
Cyprus to house its Consulate General to the United Nations.The handsome building remains relatively
untouched over a century after a decorating firm elbowed its way into a
fashionable neighborhood of wealthy New Yorkers.